China now third country to carry astronauts to an orbital space station

One small dock for Shenzhou-9, one big leap for the Chinese space program.

Early this morning at 2:07am EDT the Chinese crew of Shenzhou-9, China's 3-person orbital spacecraft, achieved China's first-ever space dock with their Tiangong-1 space station. In doing so, China became the third country to carry astronauts (or taikonauts) to an orbital space station, and at least a billion people celebrated. The flight also brought with it China's first woman into space.

Shenzhou, which translates roughly to "divine watercraft," made its first flight in 1999. Since that time, China has been racking up space milestones on a consistent basis, following up with manned launches of Shenzhou in 2003, 2005, and 2008 and the launch of the Tiangong-1 module last year. For reasons that have not yet been revealed by the Chinese government, animated depictions of Tiangong's launch were broadcast with an instrumental version of "America The Beautiful." Other than that, there have been few anomalies.

Shenzhou resembles a Soyuz spacecraft in design, with an orbital module on one end, a service module on the other, and a re-entry module in the center, but it's slightly larger. Both the service module and the orbital module are capable of flying autonomously, and both have solar panels for power.

The Shenzhou flies to orbit aboard a Chinese Long March 2F rocket. The Long March series has been around since 1970 and has also been receiving substantial and regular upgrades. The Long March 2F is a liquid-fueled booster first launched in 1999 and later upgraded to be capable of carrying human passengers.

China, having invested strongly in its space program over the last decade, hopes to use the upgraded Long March to make heavy inroads into the international satellite and satellite launch market. The Chinese announced earlier this year that they were aiming at 15 percent of the launch market and 10 percent of the satellite market by 2015, causing a ruckus in the US Congress and small weather anomalies in the office of Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia (famous for his antipathy toward all things Chinese). The latest Long March 5 rockets are about the size of the United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy and should in theory be capable of supporting lunar missions. The Chinese are currently hoping to launch sample returns by 2020, and manned missions some time later.

China announced its efforts to build its own space station last year after being repeatedly rebuffed by the U.S. from participating in the International Space Station. The Chinese station should be completed by 2020 and would weigh in at around 60 metric tons. For comparison, the International Space Station weighs in at about 450, although it was designed for a larger crew. The Soviet Mir space station, which was de-orbited in 2001, weighed in about 130 metric tons.

In design, the Chinese Tiangong Space Station strongly follows the Russian aesthetic of practicality. It resembles the Russian Mir, but it's a clean sheet design and somewhat larger. Russian space station modules begin with an off-the-shelf pressure vessel meant for a propellant tank, and it's possible that Chinese module designers follow the same practice. Tiangong-1 will be replaced relatively quickly over the next few years with follow-on modules and will itself be de-orbited as the new station takes shape.

The three main goals for this 13-day mission include health monitoring of the taikonauts, research on the effects of weightlessness, and development of overall taikonaut operational capability. These toolset goals are all part of the learning curve for any manned space program. The Chinese will probably require at least a decade to build up their own space capability to the point where safe long-term missions are capable. That's not a problem for them, as the Chinese government is famously capable of making and following long-term plans.

Dave Klingler wrote:For reasons that have not yet been revealed by the Chinese government, animated depictions of Tiangong's launch were broadcast with an instrumental version of "America The Beautiful."

Dave Klingler wrote:For reasons that have not yet been revealed by the Chinese government, animated depictions of Tiangong's launch were broadcast with an instrumental version of "America The Beautiful."

Hahaha whaaa?

Yes, kind of strange. Was that meant to be a slap in the face or something?

Even if the article did not refer to manned space flight, I think calling SpaceX an independent entity is a stretch. They launched from Cape Carnival, they were monitored by Houston, and the module itself was captured and docked using a giant robotic arm controlled by Don Pettit a NASA astronaut. SpaceX is a commercial supplier but they don't work alone in a vacuum.

Dave Klingler wrote:For reasons that have not yet been revealed by the Chinese government, animated depictions of Tiangong's launch were broadcast with an instrumental version of "America The Beautiful."

Hahaha whaaa?

Yes, kind of strange. Was that meant to be a slap in the face or something?

The Chinese will probably require at least a decade to build up their own space capability to the point where safe long-term missions are capable. That's not a problem for them, as the Chinese people are famously capable of making and following long-term plans.

The Americans in the 1960s went from having put a person in orbit to multiple moon landings in a decade. I'm certain China will be able to do well, especially with the wealth of prior knowledge behind them.

Six entities have built rockets and used them to send spacecraft to dock with a space station: the U.S., the Soviet Union/Russia, ESA, Japan, China and SpaceX. Strangely enough, I've actually seen recent congressional testimony in which retired space heroes talk about the U.S., Russia, China and SpaceX, completely forgetting Europe and Japan. I suppose that's been festering in my brain, waiting for a moment of sloppiness.

AFAICS, that's the only way the author can say this is the 4th (since SpaceX wasn't manned). That doesn't really work though: whereas Roscosmos is the current Russian equivalent of NASA, there was no single agency that handled Soviet space exploration prior to that. So if the distinction being made is between Roscosmos and those other agencies, there's probably more than four manned docking entities in total!

I think this post could use a bit more editing. My (admittedly untrained) grammar nazi radar doesn't like the mix of "were' (past) and "have been" (present?) in referring to a singular launch event in paragraph two. Then in the fifth paragraph, the sentence "The country has been investing strongly." seems out of place/disjointed. And finally, the last two sentences give me the impression of trite/unfounded generalizations of Chinese history...

AFAICS, that's the only way the author can say this is the 4th (since SpaceX wasn't manned). That doesn't really work though: whereas Roscosmos is the current Russian equivalent of NASA, there was no single agency that handled Soviet space exploration prior to that. So if the distinction being made is between Roscosmos and those other agencies, there's probably more than four manned docking entities in total!

Yeah, it doesn't work. I had originally made the error in the body of the article. One of the editors picked it up and made it the headline, and I was in a hurry to be somewhere else...

Even if the article did not refer to manned space flight, I think calling SpaceX an independent entity is a stretch. They launched from Cape Carnival, they were monitored by Houston, and the module itself was captured and docked using a giant robotic arm controlled by Don Pettit a NASA astronaut. SpaceX is a commercial supplier but they don't work alone in a vacuum.

This is a very good point. Is Rockwell (manufacturer of the Space Shuttle) an entity?

Even if the article did not refer to manned space flight, I think calling SpaceX an independent entity is a stretch. They launched from Cape Carnival, they were monitored by Houston, and the module itself was captured and docked using a giant robotic arm controlled by Don Pettit a NASA astronaut. SpaceX is a commercial supplier but they don't work alone in a vacuum.

This is a very good point. Is Rockwell (manufacturer of the Space Shuttle) an entity?

I don't think there's any doubt that SpaceX is an independent entity. The major difference (so far) between SpaceX and the traditional Big Aerospace companies is that SpaceX has developed its own products and taken big chances by investing its own money in research and development. The COTS and CCDev programs have been reward-for-milestone programs, but the rewards have been a fraction of the total monetary input. In contrast, the Big Aerospace business model demands that NASA request proposals, award a contract, pay for the new program year by year and eat any overages.

To illustrate, NASA has spent well under a billion dollars over the last few years on the development of six manned orbital vehicles. Previous studies on X-33, X-34, X-38 and HL-20 were all over a billion dollars each.

While Rockwell was an entity, they were contracted by NASA to develop and build a design which NASA partially generated and monitored very closely. COTS and Commercial Crew winners will be contracted to carry crew to the Station for a cost, like a bus ticket, on a vehicle which NASA certifies to be safe but which belongs to SpaceX.

One big leap for the chinese space program, one giant race to the moon?

[I wish.]

Language notes:

- I think it is quite alright to say astronauts, as that is what the chinese themselves use in english. See for example their english video commentary to the launch. Reversely it may by curious and/or exceptional for them why we would use their native terms (but I don't know that).

- "Divine watercraft" is, IIRC, honoring one of their first known boats, probably used by the emperors akin to the egyptians first known boats transported pharaos.

One big leap for the chinese space program, one giant race to the moon?

[I wish.]

What I wish is that China would make an effort to build the first rotating space colony. Now THAT would be progress.

Torbjörn Larsson, OM wrote:

Language notes:

- I think it is quite alright to say astronauts, as that is what the chinese themselves use in english. See for example their english video commentary to the launch. Reversely it may by curious and/or exceptional for them why we would use their native terms (but I don't know that).

- "Divine watercraft" is, IIRC, honoring one of their first known boats, probably used by the emperors akin to the egyptians first known boats transported pharaos.

Thanks! I've had a tough time locating good information on the cultural side of the topic.

Yeah, it doesn't work. I had originally made the error in the body of the article. One of the editors picked it up and made it the headline, and I was in a hurry to be somewhere else...

Well, that's why I read the comments.

Pfft, flimsy excuse! The government got to you and made you hush it up. Why is Ars helping them hide the truth? We all know that space aliens regularly dock with the ISS and have been conducting secret talks with the White House.

Dave Klingler wrote:For reasons that have not yet been revealed by the Chinese government, animated depictions of Tiangong's launch were broadcast with an instrumental version of "America The Beautiful."

Hahaha whaaa?

Yes, kind of strange. Was that meant to be a slap in the face or something?

Unlikely. If true, just Chinese complete cluelessness to western values and how we would interpret their actions.

One big leap for the chinese space program, one giant race to the moon?

[I wish.]

What I wish is that China would make an effort to build the first rotating space colony. Now THAT would be progress.

Torbjörn Larsson, OM wrote:

Language notes:

- I think it is quite alright to say astronauts, as that is what the chinese themselves use in english. See for example their english video commentary to the launch. Reversely it may by curious and/or exceptional for them why we would use their native terms (but I don't know that).

- "Divine watercraft" is, IIRC, honoring one of their first known boats, probably used by the emperors akin to the egyptians first known boats transported pharaos.

Thanks! I've had a tough time locating good information on the cultural side of the topic.

Interestingly, even in Chinese "taikonaut" is not the right word. Taikon is the word for space, BUT it's not used to refer to spacecraft crew (it's like how we don't call our crew space-nauts).

I'm going to go all "Citation Needed" on that. To "translate" you don't simply look up the two characters in a dictionary. That would be like translating "subhuman" into "undersea vessel mouthnoise one" (sub, hum, an). Note that this is (possibly) not your mistake, just about half of Chinglish is constructed this way, from word-by-word "translations".

A rough translation would be something like "spaceship". Not nearly as fun, sure, but that's what it means.

For those still reading, "divine" can also mean "heavenly" aka "above earth" aka "space". "Watercraft" becoming "ship" is too obvious to parse, really.

I'm going to go all "Citation Needed" on that. To "translate" you don't simply look up the two characters in a dictionary. That would be like translating "subhuman" into "undersea vessel mouthnoise one" (sub, hum, an). Note that this is (possibly) not your mistake, just about half of Chinglish is constructed this way, from word-by-word "translations".

A rough translation would be something like "spaceship". Not nearly as fun, sure, but that's what it means.

For those still reading, "divine" can also mean "heavenly" aka "above earth" aka "space". "Watercraft" becoming "ship" is too obvious to parse, really.

I agree that you've hit on an important point for the name, but it's not so much what the words translate to, but what they MEAN in the original language. If the Chinese named it Shenzhou but in their heads they think of something akin to the concept of a "divine watercraft", then that's the more apt translation. After all, language is just a tool to communicate ideas. Obviously even amongst different Chinese speakers, there will be different impressions held regarding the name, which is why precise translation between two such differing languages is so hard most of the time.

The Long March 2F is a liquid-fueled booster first launched in 1992 and later upgraded to be capable of carrying human passengers ...

The Long March 2F was first launched in 1999. It is based on the CZ-2E, which was first launched in 1990. I'm not sure where the number 1992 came from.

Quote:

The latest Long March 5 rockets ...

You mean the "upcoming" Long March 5 rockets. The first one is scheduled for launch in 2014.

EmeraldArcana wrote:

The Americans in the 1960s went from having put a person in orbit to multiple moon landings in a decade. I'm certain China will be able to do well, especially with the wealth of prior knowledge behind them.

Do note that NASA did it with a peak expenditure of 4% of the federal budget. (For comparison, it's now hovering around 1/2 of 1%.) In comparison, the Chinese manned space program is essentially being funded as a hobby.

...when a few minutes spent proofreading the things that emerge from my fingers...

Geraden_ wrote:

The Long March 2F was first launched in 1999. It is based on the CZ-2E, which was first launched in 1990. I'm not sure where the number 1992 came from.

daveklingler wrote:

The latest Long March 5 rockets ...

You mean the "upcoming" Long March 5 rockets. The first one is scheduled for launch in 2014.

...might save me much embarrassment. My apologies for the errors, folks. And thanks for the Chinese lessons. I won't use the nonsensical word "taikonaut" again. It's half-Chinese, half-Greek. I wonder whether it wasn't invented by an American journalist.